


In Your Mind

by CinnaStarks



Series: Inquisitor Izuna [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3205901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnaStarks/pseuds/CinnaStarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Perserverence. Izuna Lavellan has finally found someone who understands what it's like to almost be broken by a demon. If only she didn't care about him so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Mind

**Author's Note:**

> What happened when I realized that, as a result of agreeing with Cullen and siding with the Templars, the Inquisitor also has to deal with a demon bent on breaking his/her mind. I've been dealing with some of my own demons lately, so this fic ended up being much more emotionally draining than my last.

“Izuna of Clan Lavellan.” Dirty, cracked nails dug into a vanity meant for those who wouldn’t allow such a thing. The marks they would leave were far from the first and definitely not the last to scar the Orlesian craftsmanship. “Izuna, First of Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan.” Grey eyes, duller when placed upon a bloodshot canvas, glared at their reflection through shed tears. “Izuna, your Herald of Andraste.” Lungs ached from countless sobs that had been choked back. “Inquisitor Izuna of Clan Lavellan, First of Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan-“ One finally won the fight, erupting from her cracked lips like a fired arrow. Nails gripped the vanity tighter. “-your Herald of Andraste.”

She blinked.

Grey and red and white became yellow, glowing like the scar on her wrist.

She blinked again.

“I killed the demon responsible for this seven days ago.” Izuna’s voice was no more than a rasp in the still air of her quarters. “Seven fucking days.” Hair fell from braids that had been forcefully pulled apart in her sleep. It was usually not a bother unless she pulled so hard that her scalp remembered it for the rest of the day. Judging from the way it seemed to pulse on its own, today was probably going to be one of those exceptions. “I survived the place where terror is spawned and yet-“ If there had been things on the vanity, they would have been tossed off. Izuna knew better, but the urge to break something still pulled at her consciousness. She groaned. “-it won’t leave me. Why won’t it leave me?”

As if that question would ever be answered. As if she’d venture to tell anyone how the envy demon tried to break her mind that day. All but one of the names that she recited after every nightmare were reasons for people to look up to her. If anyone even wondered if Izuna was sane or not, the image she had been trying to protect would be tarnished.

She looked at her glowing scar and shook her head.

“Breathe, Izuna.” Her grip loosened. “It’s the one thing you can’t do wrong.”

The sun was up and with it, the possibility that someone would take her mind off of everything. It was as good of an excuse to get dressed as any.

Elves of her clan didn’t eat breakfast. The cook was ordered not to let anyone by the fire until the hunters came back from their morning trip. Keeper Deshanna used it as an incentive for them to wake up earlier and Izuna would have been lying if she said that she minded. Fighting on a full stomach could be sickening at times. Eating also kept her from being productive during the one time of day when she had a decent idea of where everyone was. Everyone except Cullen, who only walked out of his station on the battlements to train recruits or meet at the war table.

Their first kiss, however, had changed that. Izuna didn’t know why or how, but seeing him made her feel secure. She was like a transplanted tree whose roots dug deeper into the rocky ground every time they spoke. Even if itt had not gone further than chaste kisses upon the battlements, he was someone to fall back on. There were more pressing matters to deal with, after all.

Like why he had been replaced by one of Leliana’s recruits today.

“If you’re looking for the Commander, he’s speaking with Seeker Pentaghast.”

Izuna’s stomach sank as if she had swallowed stones. She remembered their discussion about lyrium, how he had stopped taking it. _“If my ability to lead is compromised, then I will be relieved from duty.”_ She had not believed him, not until now. Cullen was stronger than that. He had to be.

Minutes later, after almost tripping over the steps she had to race down, Izuna learned how wrong she was. Cullen was begging for it.

“Forgive me.” And then he was gone, leaving Izuna with unanswered questions and withering roots. She had to use a nearby bookshelf for support as Cassandra spoke about her opinion of Cullen’s withdrawal. The Seeker believed in Cullen with the same determination she displayed in battle. Just like Izuna, she supported his actions up until this point. Then Cassandra revealed that he had not wanted to risk her disappointment.

Izuna’s roots twisted but stayed as strong as they had been before. “Is there anything we can do to change his mind?” She asked.

“If anyone could, it’s you.” Right, because she was the very definition of strength and stability to everyone but her own reflection. The journey back to Cullen’s room felt no different from her trips to the Fallow Mire. Each step was like traversing through a shallow sea of mud. Doubt clouded her mind.

His front door was open. Izuna walked towards it and fell.  

Three hours would pass before she would wake up from a conscious dream. She was back in her quarters, alone again with an open bottle of brandy sitting on her ruined vanity. The fire it had started at the back of her throat had brought Izuna from numbness to reality. She swallowed another gulp.

_“You asked what happened to Ferelden’s circle. It was taken over by abominations. The Templars, my friends, were slaughtered. I was tortured. They tried to break my mind. How can you be the same person after that?”_

The roots had cut deeper than they ever had before, but they had also managed to become tangled up in his. Izuna’s place in the world was no longer just her own. When he felt pain, when he screamed, it tugged at her heart like an invisible rope.

She brushed away a word that had floated to the forefront of her mind. It wouldn’t help her. It wouldn’t tell her if finally confessing to everything the demon had put her through was a good idea or not. Nothing would.

Before her sat the open journal she had used to keep track of assignments since Haven was destroyed. The week was young and yet it was already half full. “Help Varric and his lady friend” was scrawled at the top. Carta mercenaries in the Hinterlands didn’t sound like much more than a few days’ worth of work, but it was enough to take Izuna’s mind off things.

Just a few hours later, she was riding her hart away from Skyhold with the dwarves, Cole, and Dorian following closely behind.

Five days later, she was wondering why she had agreed to help Bianca out in the first place. The canvas walls of Izuna’s private tent, another perk of being Thedas’s only hope, provided her with an escape from the outside’s tension. Varric’s lady friend, as genius as she evidently was, had made a stupid mistake that gave Corypheus another source of red lyrium to make use of. Varric was “fine” but the flirting Izuna had been forced to listen to while fighting off mercenaries implied that there was more to it than just resources. It was probably complicated.

Izuna hated complicated.

Motivated only by the hope that tomorrow would be exciting enough to render today’s events insignificant, she willed herself to sleep.

 

_They are standing on the battlements in a spot she knows too well. The sun is setting over the Frostbacks, its colors as warm as her love’s embrace. No words pass between them. Nothing can be heard except the distant squawking of a raven from Leliana’s tower. Something cold and wet sinks into her scalp. She scans the horizon but sees no clouds. She looks up at him._

_Blood is trickling from his throat. He looks at her with irises tainted by green light. They are cold. A smile twitches upon his face. “Is this what you feel?” He asks and the voice doesn’t sound like his. Red liquid blurs her vision. She cannot answer. Shaking legs attempt to back away, but it is in the wrong direction._

_He watches her as she falls. Green flame begins to engulf her body. She screams. Her throat bur-_

“Inquisitor.”

Izuna’s eyes flew open to meet familiar, untainted ones. She wondered if this is what Venatori felt like when her friend cast a horror spell. Though her eyes were open, nothing except the first thing that they had seen processed in her head. Everything was just a mass of shaking colors. “Durin?” His name struggled to make it through the phlegm that clogged her windpipe. “What-“

A large, almost skeletal hand squeezed one of her clenched fists and she realized that he was kneeling on the pallet beside hers. “You were having a nightmare and, before you ask, I did not sneak in here unprompted. I wouldn’t.”

“Was I screaming?”

Dorian shook his head. “Cole seemed to be narrating the entire thing. ” As if he noticed the flush creeping up Izuna’s face, the mage pushed a stray lock of blonde hair from her eyes “I’d call you lucky for not having a more scandalous dream the one time Cole decides to listen, but seeing the state you’re in-“ He sighed. “-lucky is about the last word I’d use to describe you.”

Shaking limbs curled up against her scarred body. “You didn’t have to.”

“It was either that or listen to him continue until you woke up on your own.” His free arm wrapped around her shoulders, squeezing them just tightly enough to slow down her shaking. “Seeing you like this, however, makes me glad I could not endure it.” A slight smile formed upon his lips, but it didn’t bring Izuna the peace he had probably hoped it would.

She curled up even tighter, burying her face between her knees. “You aren’t supposed to see me like this. I’m the-“

If she had not felt so weak, Izuna would have shoved Dorian for the obnoxious sigh he cut her off with. “-Inquisitor, exemplary hero to us all and perfection incarnate!” He rolled his eyes once before returning to a more concerned expression. “How long have these been happening?”

“Since I went to help the Templars before Haven was destroyed.”

“And you haven’t told anyone?”

Izuna nodded. “It’s not just the nightmares.” He already knew too much. More wouldn’t hurt matters. “An envy demon tried to possess me, Dorian. It wanted to know how I felt, so it took the forms of my friends and did-“ A sob she didn’t know she was choking back let itself loose. “-horrible things to them just to see how I would react. It tried to break me.”

Dorian’s eyebrows knit together. “If I recall correctly, didn’t something similar happen to our dear Commander at Kinloch Hold?”

“How did you-“

“Wynne, one of the Hero’s companions, sent her account of that disaster to all the major Circles as a warning of what could happen. Most of my peers brushed it off as an overreaction, but-“ Dorian grimaced. “-I’ve seen what people are willing use blood magic for. It’s the resort of the weak mind.”

Solas’s defense of it ran through her mind, another reason to keep him at Skyhold. “Cullen told me about it the day we left to help Varric out. He was so distraught over-“ Izuna resisted the urge to tell Dorian about the lyrium issue. “-more important matters. I couldn’t tell him.”

“Will you?”

Crooked teeth found the flesh of her lower lip. “He has enough to worry about. I wouldn’t want to add on to it.”

Dorian pulled her close enough to feel his body heat. The hand that had once clutched her fist pushed her jaw so that she faced him. “Did no one tell you about how the self-sacrificing idiot almost sacrificed his life for yours after Haven was destroyed?” Izuna shook her head. “Well, he did. Thought that a broken foot was enough of a reason to get left behind in the snow until Cassandra about forced him to use my staff as a crutch.” Of course he did. Her roots grew.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“To show you that, even if he didn’t know it at the time, Commander Cullen Rutherford cares for you enough to sacrifice his own life.” Though his voice was steady, Dorian’s eyes were filled with liquid fire. “If he can do that, he will endure whatever pain that your own could possibly bring him.”

Her wall stayed up for exactly three breaths.

Then it fell. Izuna collapsed into Dorian’s arms, letting out every sob she had held back since Haven was destroyed. She buried her head in his chest. Each heave sent a whiff of leather and salt through her running nose. The mage didn’t resist. While one arm held her close, the other traveled up and down her back.

“I’m not strong enough for any of this.” She said after her sobs had dissipated a bit.

“None of us are,” His words were softer than a lamb’s wool. “-but misery loves company.”

The combination of the day’s events and Izuna’s nightmare eventually dragged the exhausted elf back to sleep in Dorian’s arms. She woke up alone, but sane. No limbs shook. No tears fell. Her eyes stung from the salt stuck to her lashes, but that could be ignored. People were waiting for her.

_He_ was waiting for her on a section of the battlements she had learned to love and, more importantly, he was okay.

Her roots still curled around his, but they were no longer tangled. They were there because they wanted to be.

“What about you? You have troubles of your own. How are you holding up?”

Until they didn’t.

Izuna had prepared for this since they had left the Hinterlands, and yet she still wanted nothing more than to run away like a scared child. “There’s somethi-“ For the first time since becoming the Inquisitor, words failed her. _Remember what Dorian said, Zu._ She told herself. _He cares._ A raggedy breath escaped her lips. “I’ve never told anyone what really happened to me before we helped the Templars take down the barrier. Sera, Vivienne, and Bull saw the Lord Seeker grab me and then he disappeared and then a demon popped out of my head.” It sounded so ridiculous that Izuna couldn’t help but smile for a moment. Then it was gone. “At least, that’s how it happened from their perspective. I didn’t want people to question my stability, so I found ways to keep my story hidden.” Izuna didn’t look at him for fear of being distracted from something that had already taken more strength than she thought existed within her. “You told me what happened at Ferelden’s circle and now it’s given me the courage, the trust to tell you what happened to me.” She bit her lip. “If you’re up to it, that is. I don’t want to burden you wi-”

“Izuna.”

Grey eyes met brown. He took one of her hands into one of his own.

“Nothing you say or do will ever be a burden to me. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

Despite the emotion in his voice, Izuna couldn’t stop. She had to get this out. “I saw you die, Cullen. Envy pretended to be Leliana and slit your throat.” Izuna pushed back the pain in her chest. “Then it took your form and killed a black skinned, yellow eyed apparition of me.” Her last nightmare forced its way to the focus of her consciousness. They had been standing there. She had fallen from that same wall. Green flames edged her vision.

As if he knew that she had lost herself, Cullen squeezed her hand tighter. It brought the world back to a plane of reality they both stood upon. “It haunts you, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “Ever since we became closer, I’ve seen Envy’s version of you in my dreams. Sometimes my eyes glow yellow when I look in the mirror.” Izuna reciprocated Cullen’s gesture as a means of saying that she was back.  “I kept quiet about it because I didn’t want to worry you, but Dorian caught me in the midst of one of my nightmares a few days and told me about your injury during Haven’s destruction. If Dorian had not given you his staff to use as a crutch, you would have gladly frozen to death in order to keep from slowing my search party down.”

“He earned my trust that night.”

“And he helped you earn mine this week.” Izuna turned to take Cullen’s other hand into hers. Their eyes met again. “We don’t have to deal with these demons alone.”

Any worries she had once carried left with the reappearance of that smirk of his. Recent events had stolen it from him, but an envy demon had helped bring it back. “No, we certainly do not.” He said before pulling her into a kiss to seal their promise to stay the course, even when demons tried to deter them.

When Izuna looked into her mirror the next morning, she did not grasp the edges of its vanity. Tears did not stain the finish. She blinked.

Her eyes stayed grey.


End file.
